1. Field of the Disclosure
Embodiments disclosed herein generally relate to methods and apparatuses to remove drilling fluids from a tubular member. More specifically, embodiments disclosed herein relate to an apparatus that is used to wipe tubular members as the tubular members are removed from a downhole well location.
2. Background Art
When drilling oil wells, the drill string typically includes several sections of tubular members, such as drill pipe, threaded together in an end-to-end fashion to make up a continuous drillstring. From time-to-time, the drillstring must be raised or “tripped” out of the hole, such as when changing the drill bit at the end of the string. As the drillstring is brought out of the hole, the various tubular members are removed from the string and set aside in or around the drilling rig. However, when doing this, the tubular members may have drilling fluids and/or debris deposited thereon, such as oil or water-based mud and cuttings from the drilled underground formations.
For example, when drilling downhole, the cuttings formed from the borehole with the drill bit at the bottom of the string may need to be removed from the wellbore, and the well head may need to be maintained at a predetermined hydrostatic pressure. Drilling mud is then pumped down through a bore of the drill pipe where the mud exits the drill bit, and is circulated back uphole in the annular space between the drill pipe and the borehole. As such, as the string of tubular members is brought up and removed from the wellbore, mud, whether oil-based or water-based mud, may cling to the outer surface of the tubular members.
One way to remove drilling mud from the tubular members is to have a drilling rig crew member wash down the tubular members with a hose or the like as the tubular members emerge from the borehole. However, this may lead to a loss of valuable drilling fluid that may otherwise be reused in the drilling process, or may further lead to having mud being cast off and onto the rig floor and/or in the areas of the pipe handling equipment, presenting both concerns related to the safety of the workers and concerns related to the proper maintenance of the equipment in the rig. In addition, water used to clean the tubular members may dilute the drilling fluid in the wellbore and affect the mud weight.
Another way to remove mud from the tubular members is to include a one-piece wiper with the pipe handling equipment, in which the wiper may be used to remove excess mud from tubular members passing through the pipe handling equipment. However, this may lead to the wiper wearing out more rapidly, as the wiper may be engaging and wiping the outer surface of the tubular members when passing the tubular members both downhole and uphole. Furthermore, these wipers may not be readily accessible or removable, and therefore may require a significant amount of downtime within the drilling rig to replace the wipers.
Accordingly, there exists a need that may address these concerns, such as to more adeptly accommodate the mud that may be deposited on tubular members emerging from the borehole.